The gleefully vulgar male-bonding comedy has covered ground including “National Lampoon’s Animal House” in 1978 and 2009’s “The Hangover”; “Bridesmaids” in 2011 introduced a female-driven correlative. Variations include 2017’s “Girls Trip,” for which a sequel is being concocted. This weekend, there’s “Spa Weekend,” in which a quartet of temperamentally complementary women seek to transcend their individual neuroses and get some much-needed relaxation.
Each of the performers is something of a comedic virtuoso. Leslie Mann’s specialty is dryly swallowing the quiet desperation of the stressed-out professional she often plays, and here she’s Jane, an overscheduled lawyer who’s in for some life-changing massages at the Solaris Eden resort. Sophie (Anna Faris) is a hyper-competent executive assistant crushed under the thumb of an abusive boss. And Coco (Michelle Buteau), who impulsively booked the getaway for her posse, is so beset by anger issues that a lot of her scenes seem to have come out of a down-market Mike Leigh movie. This trio pointedly exclude their maniacal pal Mel (Isla Fisher), but of course she shows up anyway and, for starters, won’t stop talking during a guided meditation led by a very uptight instructor named Shanti (Erika Heynatz).
These are sharp, funny performers, and one wishes that the movie’s co-writers and co-directors, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, had furnished them with a script that consistently measures up to their talents. Occasionally a good line lands, as when Mann notes, “The last time I had a massage was, like, my last mammogram,” but more often than not the ladies sound like sexually overexcited teenage boys. When Lerner and Loewe wrote “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man,” I don’t believe this is what they had in mind.
Spa Weekend Rated R for gleeful vulgarity, in buckets. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.
The post ‘Spa Weekend’ Review: Girls Gone Wellness appeared first on New York Times.
